I’ll be speaking at the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Solo & Small Firm Conference on February 25th. The conference will be held at Hilton Riverside (details here). I’ll be talking about “Paperless Lawyering” at 1:30 pm (Rosedown Ballroom) and co-presenting “60 Tech Tips in 60 Minutes” at 4:00 pm (Napoleon Ballroom).
The conference is a two day event that starts on Thursday, February 24th. I highly recommend it for lawyers who want to learn how to incorporate technology into their practice.
My law practice has been completely paperless for at least five years now, and I can’t emphasize enough how beneficial it has been to break the surly bonds of paper. I began my journey about ten years ago, back when the technology issues involved with going paperless were much more challenging. Now, the tech hurdles are fairly easy to surmount. The big challenge for lawyers today is mostly about shifting their paper-based workflow (which is a largely unconscious process) to a digital workflow (which, at first, requires much thought).
Nevertheless, many lawyers are now beginning to understand the huge benefits of becoming paperless. I have witnessed this expanding interest over the past few years whenever I was invited to give a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) talk about becoming paperless. There is huge demand for information on how to shift one’s law practice to a paperless one. People quibble about whether one can be completely paperless, but that’s a silly debate. I am completely paperless, and so it’s possible. But, even if you don’t want to be completely paperless, it’s clear that you should strive to be largely paperless.
How do you start down this path? First, go visit DigitalWorkflowCLE.com the site that Dane Ciolino and I started, which is focused precisely upon this question. We have a couple of introductory videos that are free to watch. And, if you’re a Louisiana lawyer you can get CLE credit for watching the videos. We’ll be posting more information at DigitalWorkflowCLE in the coming months, so check in there periodically for new information and tips about how to make your law practice less dependent upon paper.
